Make India Asbestos Free

Journal of Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI). Asbestos Free India campaign of BANI is inspired by trade union leader Purnendu Majumadar. It has been working for last 17 years. It works with peoples movements, doctors, researchers and activists besides trade unions, human rights, environmental, consumer and public health groups. BANI demands criminal liability for companies and medico-legal remedy for victims. For Details: krishnagreen@gmail.com

IT’S good that Quebeckers kicked out that shameless man who was all out to KILL MORE POOR INDIANS in a horrible way by encouraging the export of CANCER-CAUSING asbestos from Quebec to India in spite of protests and appeals by every respectable medical expert and health organization in the world.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest got his butt kicked good and proper by Parti Quebecois boss Pauline Marois. Charest even lost his own seat! What a pathetic character!

In my August 17 column, I wrote: “No decent Quebecer should vote for the Liberal Party in the September 4 provincial election because Premier Jean Charest has disgraced himself by providing a loan of $58 million to reopen the province’s asbestos mine.“And like the typical OPPORTUNISTIC politician, Charest did that ONLY for votes as he knew he was soon going to call an election. It didn’t matter how IMMORAL that policy was. As the Globe and Mail newspaper pointed out: “While most Quebeckers oppose asbestos mining, the plan [to relaunch the asbestos mine] will have plenty of backers around the mine location in the Eastern Townships, where seats can swing.”

“That cancer-causing asbestos has killed countless poor Indians in India already and now South Asian businessman BALJIT CHADHA (Montreal Gazette reported that Chadha and Jeffrey Mine President Bernard Coulombe are now co-owners of a new company called Mineral Fibre Inc. which owns the Jeffrey Mine) is ready to do his demonic part to KILL more Indians.

2 Jean Charest

“And then we South Asians have the nerve to accuse white guys of racism for every little thing!

“But thank God there are decent WHITE politicians out there who want to end this MASS MURDER of poor Indians.”

KATHLEEN Ruff, senior human-rights adviser with the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute, in an email this week, noted: “The PQ have promised to cancel the loan to Jeffrey mine once elected and to hold a parliamentary commission to try to work with the residents of the asbestos mining area to develop alternative economic initiatives for the region.

“The Liberal Party has done much better than was predicted and will clearly oppose cancelling the loan to Jeffrey mine. The third party, the CAQ, has taken a position in support of banning asbestos. However, they said that, if elected, they would not cancel the loan to Jeffrey mine. QS were the first Quebec political party to take a position calling for a ban on asbestos.

“It will clearly be more difficult for the PQ to implement its agenda on any issue, if it is a minority government. However, it should be able to go ahead and cancel the loan to Jeffrey mine.”

So let’s wait and see how things go down.

But decent people, especially Indians, all around the world will be rejoicing that Charest got his big fat butt kicked real good!

3 Baljit Chadha

EVEN as Charest was humiliated this week, there was good news of MORE fierce opposition to the immoral asbestos trade.

The Union for the International Control of Cancer (UICC), which comprises more than 700 member organisations in 155 countries, in a position statement declared that it:

1. Calls for a global ban on the mining, use, and export of all forms of asbestos;2. Calls specifically on all asbestos exporting countries to respect the right to health by ceasing the mining, use, and export of asbestos, and providing transition assistance to their asbestos-mining communities;3. Calls specifically on the all asbestos-using countries to cease use of asbestos;4. Urges all countries that have used asbestos to inform their citizens and their healthcare professionals of the hazards of asbestos and to implement safety measures to monitor the health of citizens who are likely to have been exposed at any point in their lives. To facilitate this, an inventory of asbestos already in place is needed, particularly in schools and places where children are present.

AND in Australia, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Assistant Secretary Michael Borowick said asbestos remained a silent killer and the Australian government’s announcement that it would establish a new agency to deal with this hazard at the joint ACTU-Cancer Council Australia summit in Sydney, showed it took the issue seriously.

He noted: “About 600 Australians are dying from asbestos-related diseases each year, including increasing numbers who inadvertently breathed in asbestos fibres during home renovation projects.”

“Although asbestos was banned almost a decade ago, Australians are concerned that it remains a major health hazard in the community, and unions are determined that the removal of asbestos by 2030 remains on the public agenda.

He also noted: “Australia has the highest rate of mesothelioma deaths in the world and experts predict this will worsen in the future, with the rise of home renovations.

“Unions have long been calling for the safe removal of asbestos by 2030, starting with Government buildings, and for an audit of its existence in residential properties built before production ended in 1987. The trail of asbestos leaves a grim legacy and today’s Summit is an important discussion about how to end it.”

(For more on the ASBESTOS controversy, please visit website www.AsianJounral.ca and type in “asbestos” in the Google search box.)

2 comments:

It's heartening to hear of this small step forward to stop to weaken the Canadian asbestos industry. What is being done on the home front in India to stop, reduce, minimise asbestos exposure in the mean time while this product is still used so extensively?

Health Matters

Ban on Asbestos is a Must

A study in a peer-reviewed journal had earlier estimated that there could be more than 6,000 workers affected by asbestosis (an untreatable lung ailment) and another 600 suffering at the minimum from asbestosis-related lung cancer in India at present. Occupational cancer from asbestos, the disease caused by emissions at the work place, poses an increasingly serious health problem. But the subject has attracted relatively little attention from industry, labour, public health bodies or the medical profession. Asbestos is one of the single largest sources of occupational cancer. Indian polticians are acting as if they are bonded workers of asbestos industry.

World Trade Center, New York collapsed Thousands of tons of asbestos became airborne.

Back in 1981, there was research coming out that Asbestos was cancer causing and this ad was in rebuttal to that research touting the benefits of using Asbestos. The text over the Twin Towers states, "When the Fire Alarm Went Off, It Took Two Hours to Evacuate New York's World Trade Center." I do not need to remind anyone of the images of September 11th and this ad. The copy below the ad goes on to mention all of the places that Asbestos was used in the World Trade Center. I can not not think of all of the innocent victims in the area that were exposed to all of the dust, smoke and inherent asbestos that was in the air after the buildings collapsed. The cloud of smoke went across the entire city and potentially exposed hundreds of thousands of individuals to asbestos. Hopefully there can be a cure or treatment for Mesothelioma before all of these potential victims are diagnosed.

Ban Use of Asbestos Products

Apex Court allocates meagre compensation for asbetsos victims

In 1995, the Supreme Court of India fixed Rs 1 lakh compensation amount and identified National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) as the final authority to certify asbestosis cases. Compensations are given through the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). Two workers in Ahmedabad Electricity Company diagnosed as having asbestosis by NIOH have been compensated by Gujarat High Court. Twenty-five workers in asbestos jointing and packing industry at Mumbai were compensated by the Special medical board of ESIC. The court ruled that the industrial units must maintain a health record of every worker up to a minimum period of 40 years; insure workers under the Employees State Insurance Act or Workmen’s Compensation Act and give health coverage to every worker.

Asbestos Victims

Every day estimated 30 deaths in India is under way due to the ongoing trade and use of white asbestos. 'Asbestos' in Greek means 'indestructible'. Greeks called asbestos the 'magic mineral'. Asbestos is a generic term, referring usually to six kinds of naturally occuring mineral fibres. Of these six, three are used more commonly. Chrysotile is the most common, accounts for almost 90 per cent of the asbestos used in the industry, but it is not unusual to encounter Amosite or Crocidolite as well. Though Crocidolite asbestos is banned in India, it can still be found in old insulation material, old ships that come from other countries for wrecking in India. All types of asbestos tend to break into very tiny fibre, almost microscopic. In fact, some of them may be up to 700 times smaller than human hair. Because of their small size, once released into the air, they may stay suspended in the air for hours or even days. Asbestos fibres are virtually indestructible. They are resistant to chemicals and heat, and are very stable in the environment. They do not evaporate into air or dissolve in water, and they do not break down over time. Because of its high durability and with tensile strength asbestos has been widely used inconstruction and insulation materials - it has been used in over 3,000 different products. Where do we use it? In India, asbestos is used in manufacture of pressure and non pressure pipes used for water supply, sewage, irrigation and drainage system in urban and rural areas, asbestos textiles, laminated products, tape, gland packing, packing ropes, brake lining and jointing used in core sector industries such as automobile, heavy equipment, petro-chemicals, nuclear power plants, fertilizers, thermal power plants, transportation, defence.

Vladimir Putin government set up a panel of experts to give an opinion on a possible Russian asbestos ban. The panel’s report gave an impassioned defence of asbestos use. Dr Izmerov gave a presentation on "Chrysotile. Russian Experience in Occupational Health" at the International Conference on Chrysotile in Montreal during May 23 - 24, 2006. Russia exported 152, 820 MT of chrysotile asbestos to India in 2006.